Simple yet Profound

Yesterday I met with my new Senior to talk about various ministry, mostly those which I am in charge of. As such, we discussed the Latino ministry--our growth and our hopes/plans for growth in the coming year. He was talking to me about changing rooms for worship, from the chapel to a larger space. The chapel comfortably fits about 40, our next option is BH, which can seat about 60. There is also WH, which would seat closer to 200, but it is both currently being loaned out to another church for use, and for the size we are now, would completely dwarf our congregation.

As a small ethnic congregation, it regularly feels like we just get moved about as it seems to fit the needs of the larger, predominantly anglo, congregation. So, I wasn't terribly keen on just getting moved. But then he explained something to me--he said that a room or sanctuary generally fills to about 80% capacity. (Don't ask me why, that's just the statistic). But the implication of that stat is that our congregation, which is now totaling between 22-27 on Sunday mornings, doesn't have much more space to grow. (Somehow I have had it in my head that we would fill to *overfull* and then we would know we need to move spaces). So, if we moved to BH, with a max capacity of 60+, we would then have the potential for 50+ folks in worship--doubling our current worship size, AND giving us a screen to use for worship, and space for dancers or a praise band to lead us in worship. So, we are looking into making that move in the coming months. I hadn't realized that the size of our worship space could restrict our growth potential in such a profound way. So hopefully, the move will offer new possibilities.

**as a related note of success, in the fall we had set a goal of growing to 25 in worship for 2007 and then 50 for 2008. I hadn't remembered the goal but was delighted when I realized that essentially we had already met the 2007 goal, and was hopeful that a change in worship venue might allow us to meet our 2008 goal by the end of 2007! (Now, I realize that numbers aren't everything, and that is not the main motivation of my ministry here, but for a growing mission church, that kind of growth is very exciting and something to give thanks for!)